It’s a full-circle moment. A solid 20 years after he released his first album, Breaking Kayfabe, Roland “Rollie” Pemberton a.k.a. Cadence Weapon, is returning to Edmonton — where he created it — to perform it again.
We reach him in Montreal, where the Polaris Music Prize-winning artist often performs.
“I am really excited about this show. I love this time of year in Edmonton, around the holidays when lots of people come back to town,” says Pemberton. “It’s going to be a celebration not just of this record but of Edmonton music history.”
The rapper grew up in the city, feverishly listening to all the hip-hop he could get his hands on. And it was a lot: his dad, Teddy Pemberton, was a hip-hop DJ at CJSR.
“I grew up listening to all rap. I heard every significant album. Hip-hop was such a part of my life and I held myself up to the standards of who I was listening to.”
He wrote the album when he was 17 and 18, releasing it at 19.
“I was living in my mom’s attic and making beats. I was totally isolated and in a pure artistic environment where I was just making music all the time.”
It all felt very serious, he says.
“I was listening to Illmatic by Nas and Jay-Z’s Reasonable Doubt and the Outkast albums and I wanted to make albums as good as that. It’s definitely a lofty project but when you aim for the moon you might land on a cloud and I feel like that’s what happened.”
Now he’s 39, looking back at his teenage self.
“It’s been surprisingly emotional,” he says. “It really brings a lot of memories flooding back.”
“I still have that same youthful spirit and a joy for music that has not waned at all as I grow older,” he says.
He’s definitely more mature now, he says. He’s been sober for a few years and he’s married with a young son.
“I see music differently than I did back then. It was more oppositional, there was a lot of anger involved. It was about trying to destroy the status quo and I was on a crusade. I was really extra about it,” he laughs.
“Nowadays I’m just really dedicated to my craft and trying to improve every time I make something and to really have a clear vision for everything I’m doing.”
He has two albums in the works. One, a collaborative record with producer Junia-T, featuring all live instrumentation, will be out next April.
Another that he’s making with Taydex, a renowned LA producer who has worked with Jon Batiste and Kanye. It will be out in 2027.
“We became friends, we’re making this record together,” says Pemberton. “It talks about the relationship between Americans and Canadians.”
He also finished writing his memoir, Ways of Listening, which comes out next May.
First, he has to survive DJing a seven-hour all-vinyl set at the club Sans Soleil, which he has on the schedule the day we chat with him in Montreal.
“It’s a Herculean effort,” he says. He packed a suitcase worth of vinyl with him but he’ll hit up a few Montreal record shops, too. All in a day’s work for an Alberta-raised rapper still aiming for the stars.
Cadence Weapon will play a 20th Anniversary of Breaking Kayfabe show at the Starlite Room in Edmonton on December 27, with Arlo Maverick and Moto Music. Tickets and details can be found here.
“Step Out”, the first single from Pemberton’s upcoming album with Junia-T:
